


they tell you that love burns (they don't teach you how to put out the flame)

by orphan_account



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Study, F/M, Internalized Homophobia (kinda), Relationship Study, Stream of Consciousness, Wendla-centric, honestly i don't know what this is, the underage isn't bad but it's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 13:24:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7846822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wendla Bergmann is closer to sixteen than fifteen when she starts dating Melchior Gabor, radical heartthrob of their school. Everyone had seen it coming, apparently, had seen the way they laughed and danced around each other for the past month. It was the perfect build-up; lots of flirting, a little insecurity, just the right amount of pining. “For the first time I actually feel like I’m a real high schooler,” he’d whispered between first-kiss-attempt four and five that night, hands in her hair, and her chest had burned with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they tell you that love burns (they don't teach you how to put out the flame)

**Author's Note:**

> warnings at the end

7:32AM on a Monday morning dawns on a scene high school cliches know too well- the boy and the girl, holding hands while sitting on the heater in the front foyer. She’s grinning with the anxious rush of this official declaration of the get-together, and he’s rubbing her knuckles with his thumb while joking with their friends. It’s still new, only consummated by the required shitty first kiss (followed by another, and another, and another) last Friday, and the congratulations rained down on them by friends makes her cheeks warm. She’s just embarrassed by the attention, though. She just doesn’t date very often and this is new for her though. 

Wendla Bergmann is closer to sixteen than fifteen when she starts dating Melchior Gabor, radical heartthrob of their school. Everyone had seen it coming, apparently, had seen the way they laughed and danced around each other for the past month. It was the perfect build-up; lots of flirting, a little insecurity, just the right amount of pining. “For the first time I actually feel like I’m a real high schooler,” he’d whispered between first-kiss-attempt four and five that night, hands in her hair, and her chest had burned with it.

She tries to convince herself that the way her breath catches in her throat at every swipe of his thumb is excitement, is fondness. It might be. It should be. What else could it be?

 

Melchior is a good foot taller than her, so walking hand in hand is awkward verging on painful. Their strides never quite match. So they decide to just hold hands when they sit (“It’s just easier,” she had said, weirdly nervous, hiding behind a smile. She didn’t think she was supposed to be hiding from him, but it still felt like she was. “Guess it’s my fault for dating a giant.”) Sometimes he’ll pull her into his chest, warm arm across her shoulders. He smells like coconut, and Wendla melts into him.

 

Ilse’s eyes go funny when Wendla tells her, all giggles and distant smiles, about her new boyfriend. Or maybe Wendla looks at her funny, because a second later Ilse is smiling, sweet words coming from her lips, white teeth biting at her joke of beating Melchior up if he hurts her. Wendla’s chest burns at that, too. 

(But the burn of Ilse is so different from Melchior’s- his has a sting to it, it leaves her buzzing and off-balance, like every touch of his hand pulls something from her. But hers is soft, like the heat of a candle versus a roaring flame, and smooth like silk. Which makes sense, because obviously Melchior is different from Ilse. But Wendla still finds herself trying too hard not to think about it.)

 

Wendla tells her parents about Melchior on Wednesday after school. She’s nervous about it (even more nervous than when she’d come out to them, for some reason), but her mother’s delighted face soothes her worries. “I like that boy,” she confesses faux-conspiratorially, and her father just gives his speech about wanting to meet him. Wendla smiles, feeling like she’s passed a milestone, finally, of female adolescence, and her parents are happy, accepting. Something like relief slides between a glance they share- thank god, they don’t say- and that cuts her in a way she doesn’t want to think about.

 

Their friends never leave them alone, not that she expected them to. Georg and Otto wolf-whistle anytime Melchior so much as brushes the hair out of Wendla’s face, and Anna coos about how “I called it, goddammit! I knew you two would be perfect for each other!” 

The sentiment is echoed by almost everyone in the school, it seems. A girl in Wendla’s bio class, Greta, says “You can see in your eyes how much you two like each other. It’s sweet.” 

The constant affirmation reassures Wendla. It’s obvious they should be together. Everyone sees it, everyone expected it. It makes sense. They fit. They’re together, and everyone knows it, and everyone approves, thinks they’re perfect for each other.

Wendla wonders why the thought turns her stomach.

 

Melchior takes them to a movie that weekend. It’s one they both decide on for the fact that it looks awful, and Melchior insist on buying the tickets. It’s a sweet gesture (It cloys in her mouth). They sit off to the side, in the couples section, rows of two with armrests that fold up and away. “Never thought I’d be sitting here,” Melchior says with a fond smile. “Especially not with a cute girl.”

“Cute girl? Where?” she jokes back automatically, a defense system that shouldn’t be calibrated for him. “I just see a tree-man who’s blocking my view of the very important and interesting previews.”

The movie is, somehow, worse that they had anticipated. Warm lips replace whispered snide commentary after only twenty minutes, and then burning hands start to wander. Wendla jolts, but lets it happen- she knew it was going to, hell she was anticipating it. She wouldn’t have worn a crop top if she hadn’t wanted his, right? Hands creep into her bra and she kisses his neck, lies to herself that she likes the prick of his stubble on her lips.

Time warps around them in breaths that feel like they don’t have enough oxygen in them and suddenly they’re walking out again, and he’s complaining about how awful the film was- “Okay, so maybe I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention,” he grins under his breath, “but what I saw was just fucking ridiculous, I mean, what even was the plot-?” He’s holding her hand again (the same hand that-) and she tries so believe that her heart’s rate is giddy excitement.

 

He kisses her goodbye, on the cheek, as her dad pulls up to the curb. She waves goodnight, smiling with her eyes.

Wendla goes home and mourns something that night. She’s not quite ready to acknowledge what it is yet.

 

“The best thing about dating a bi girl,” Melchior declares one lunch period, “is that we can talk to each other about boys and girls, and it’s like, no big deal.”

 

Wendla thinks about her Pinterest fashion board (more pictures pinned for the models themselves than the dresses they display), the roughness of stubble, the way her eyes catch on skirts that swirl through the school hallways and the bile of guilt in the back of her throat, burning hands buried in her hair, how she thinks more about silk warmth than bonfires. 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Totally cool.” 

 

Wendla likes Melchior, is the thing. He’s intelligent, and witty, and all of their friends get along, and her takes her seriously, and he calls her beautiful, and his hair is very soft. They like the same shows and listen to similar music. He helps her be more social and she’s his anchor when his emotions get rocky. He ticks all of the boxes of “desirable boy”, to the testimony of almost everyone at their school who likes boys. Like everyone says, they fit. They’re a high school classic, their relationship basically writes itself.

But in the lonely dark of her bedroom, only the moon peering in from her open window, she can’t push away the truth. She can’t hide from the acid gnaw of discomfort-anxiety-disgust that the memory of their movie date brings. She can’t pretend that the burning of his hands on her skin heats her blood- she sees the marks he leaves on her in the milky moonlight. They said lovebites hurt, but these are just bruises. She drowns under the knowledge that she can’t do this anymore.

Wendla cries herself to sleep and wakes up feeling scrubbed raw.

 

She had texted him that they needed to talk and so he meets her in front of the school. He looks like he wants to reach for her hand but she keeps them shoved in the pockets of her hoodie, one clutching desperately at her phone. She had a million excuses, a thousand apologies and stories on the tip of her tongue, but she looks at him and can only whisper “I’m sorry.” 

Melchior doesn’t look surprised, just disappointed and a little hurt. “It’s not- was it something I did?”

Wendla shrugs. “I think it’s more of who- who you are. Not that you’re a bad person but- and everyone said we were good together but-” she cuts herself off. “And I think I might actually... like girls. Just girls.” She can’t look at him. “Sorry.”

“I don’t blame you.” A gentle touch on her shoulder (it doesn’t burn through two layers of clothes, thank god) urges her to look up at him, and he’s smiling sadly. “Can we please still be friends?”

 

For a moment she wants so scream no, wants to wrench his hand off of her and make him burn like she did and run away so that he never lays eyes on her again. “Eventually,” she says instead, and even believes it. He nods and turns back to walk into the school building.

 

It’s unusually cold for a morning in mid-May, and standing out in the chill, Wendla finally listens to the sound of her heart shattering. It’s high and clear like glass, and her next inhale bites the inside of her lungs. She shivers.

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: wendla feels very uncomfortable throughout their relationship (due to internalized homophobia, she has entered a relationship with melchior and is struggling to come to terms with herself). as such, this can be difficult for some to read. i did not intend to paint their relationship as abusive but it does have similar themes. they are also high schoolers (16-17) and while there is very little sexual content, it is underage and is, again, experienced through wendla.
> 
> anyway i wrote this as catharsis for myself and my won struggle re:sexuality so. take it as that.


End file.
